IT wing goes for virtual separation

Unlike other departments which are encountering problems on account of division of their functions between the two States, the job appears to be much easier for the Information Technology Department.

The department has taken the virtual route to make sure its operations in the two States, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, are separated and synchronised effectively. The State has been one of the forerunners in ushering in IT-enabled administration and a majority of the departments have their exclusive IT infrastructure put in place.

There are, however, common operations like the video-conferencing facility, MeeSeva, State Data Centre and the State portal/wide area network that are presently functioning under the IT Department. Given the complexity involved in the “real separation” of the functions, the department has opted for virtual separation, to begin with, leveraging the advantage offered by the cloud services.

Accordingly, separate portals – one each exclusively for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh - are being set up while the existing State-wide data would be kept as a backend support. “There will be separate portals for common operations like MeeSeva, data centres and video conferencing facility so that the two States can carry out functions separately,” IT secretary Sanjay Jaju said.

The department was initially focussing on departments with higher IT interface and this would gradually be extended to those with lower levels of IT penetration. “We are confident that we can ensure virtual separation ahead of the appointed day on June 2. The IT-intensive departments can resume their functions from Day One,” he said.

Veteran IT professional J.A. Chowdary said virtual separation of the functions of the IT-intensive departments was not a complicated task. “This is nothing. We have made many major achievements internationally in the past,” he said. Two new servers will carry out the operations for the two States while the existing data can be used as a backup and data relevant to either of the States could be picked up from it as and when needed.

According to Mr. Jaju, the department focussed on the virtual route as it was for the new governments to decide on whether they want a separate infrastructure equipped with necessary hardware and software support. “In the event of the new governments opting for exclusive infrastructure of their own, they will have to procure new hardware/software as also the licences to operate them,” he said.